1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to enabling a wireless device that is not required or generally configured to support Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) to nonetheless communicate with a wireless infrastructure that uses Internet Protocol (IP) structures or architectures, with IP-based communication between the wireless infrastructure and any VoIP-based infrastructure being supported.
2. Background
Wireless devices, such as but not limited to wireless telephones that communicate using Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) spread spectrum modulation techniques, communicate over the air with system infrastructure using wireless telephone over-the-air communication protocols, e.g., the CDMA protocols known as IS-95A, IS-95B, and IS-2000. The system infrastructure, which can include Base Stations (BTS), Base Station Controllers (BSC), and other components, connects the wireless device to another communication device, such as a through land line or another wireless communication system.
In the case of CDMA, voice data is sent over the air in packets that are collected by the infrastructure and assembled into a voice stream, transparently to the speakers who are talking to each other. As might be expected, the over-the-air protocol is tailored to optimize wireless communication. For instance, to maximize over-the-air capacity, the over-the-air protocol contains a minimum of signaling information, and the size of a voice data packet is relatively small.
With the growth of the Internet, computer-to-computer communication using IP has become ubiquitous. Furthermore, it has become desirable not only to facilitate computer data communication using IP, but to facilitate voice communication using IP as well. As but one advantage afforded by using IP in a telephony infrastructure, much hardware such as switches can be eliminated, and existing computers and software can be used instead, reducing cost. To this end, so-called VoIP has been introduced.
To support VoIP, a communication device must have, among other requirements, IP capability, i.e., the device must itself be able to communicate using IP, and it must have an IP address. However, requiring a wireless telephone to use VoIP diminishes over-the-air capacity because VoIP is not necessarily designed to maximize such capacity. Instead, VoIP accounts for design considerations that are not necessarily related to wireless telephony. As an example, the data packet size of VoIP is relatively large, compared to the packet size used throughout the wireless communication industry such as in wireless telephones using over-the-air protocols such as IS-95. Indeed, a typical packet size in the IS-95 protocol is less than the size of a single packet header employed in a typical IP. Moreover, configuring a wireless telephone to communicate using both IP and over-the-air protocols complicates telephone design, adversely strains available resources (e.g., power, computing cycles, coding, and so on), and increases costs.
Nonetheless, it would be desirable to enable wireless telephone communication using an infrastructure that transmits data in accordance with IP principles. With the above considerations in mind, the present disclosure provides several solutions.